Balkan war fear as Bulgaria offers troops to Macedonia

BULGARIA offered to send troops to Macedonia yesterday, raising fears that the fighting on the border with Kosovo could spread into a regional conflict.

Officials in Sofia said President Petar Stoyanov told his Macedonian counterpart, Boris Traikovski, that he was ready to send "Bulgarian armed forces if Macedonia asks its neighbours or international organisations". Later, Mr Boiko Noev, Bulgaria's Defence Minister, sought to play down the president's remarks, saying there was no need to send troops. But the offer revived fears in the West of a pan-Balkan conflict centred on Macedonia.

Macedonia has been largely spared the past decade's convulsions in the region. But it was the object of contention in the two Balkan wars early last century, and there have long been fears that it could be dragged into the strife that has accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia. Albanians make up about a third of the population of Macedonia. The majority are Slavs who speak a variant of Bulgarian. Other groups include Vlachs, who speak a language related to Romanian, Turks and Gipsies.

Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria have in the past all made territorial claims on what is now Macedonia. But the latest threat comes from Albanian militants seeking to create a "Greater Albania", or at least a "Greater Kosovo". The ethnic conflict in Kosovo has spilled across the border into southern Serbia and northern Macedonia. Albanian militants have used Kosovo and its buffer zones as safe havens from which to launch attacks. The United Nations Security Council is expected to hold an emergency session, and Macedonia is calling on Nato to create a buffer zone on its border.

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Nato has called on Macedonia to exercise restraint. But the American ambassador in Skopje, Michael Einik, said: "We understand the need and obligation for Macedonia to respond to this threat on its territory." President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia, who overthrew the dictator Slobodan Milosevic last October, sent a message of sympathy to his Macedonian counterpart. Belgrade has so far responded cautiously to similar trouble around the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia, but Mr Kostunica faces criticism from hard-line Milosevic supporters for not allowing security forces fully to take on the "Albanian terrorists".

Yugoslavia has expressed a readiness to negotiate a ceasefire in the valley. Albanian political leaders have called for expansion of the Nato buffer zone and an internationally supervised demilitarisation of the valley, essentially extending Kosovo's protected status to southern Serbia. The Albanian government has, for the moment, condemned the violence and appealed to Kosovo's Albanian political leaders to distance themselves.